In the conventional cheese making process for producing cheddar, colby or stirred curd cheese, the curd and whey are transferred from the cheesemaking vat to a finishing vat where the curd is slowly agitated and the whey is drawn off. Subsequently, the cheddar type curd is milled and, in all cases, the moist curd is agitated by forking paddles which travel the length of the vat on a reciprocating carriage. In the past, the curd was removed from the vat by manual shoveling and placed in hoops. Recently, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,853,241, finishing vats have been constructed with an open end enclosed by a removable or hinged door. With a vat of this type, the curd, instead of being shoveled out of the vat, is pushed out of the open door into a series of hoops or onto a conveyor system.
The conventional finishing vat has an open top, and thus, the cheese curd is subjected to contamination from the environment. In addition, due to the open top, there is a certain amount of evaporation that occurs unless the finishing vat is equipped with a water heated jacket to maintain the curd in a warm state and prevent evaporation.
In the past, separate implements have been utilized for the stirring and the removal of the curd from the finishing vat. The normal stirring implements take the form of small fork-like paddles or rakes, and to discharge the curd, the stirring paddles must be removed and replaced by pusher blades which extend the width of the vat. The removal of the stirring paddles and replacement with the pusher blades requires considerable labor and results in a certain amount of downtime for the vat.